But it is also a threat to the idea that Internet service providers shouldn’t be allowed to charge (or not charge, in this case) their customers based on the websites they visit.

The service isn’t as nefarious as other threats to this concept, often called “net neutrality.” Many have envisioned a future where Internet service providers charge their customers extra to access popular services like Netflix or YouTube or Facebook. They might slow these services down, allowing them to give their own offerings preferential treatment. Or they might ask some companies to pay an extra fee to make their websites perform better than others.

Net neutrality is a dead man walking. The execution date isn’t set, but it could be days, or months (at best). And since net neutrality is the principle forbidding huge telecommunications companies from treating users, websites, or apps differently — say, by letting some work better than others over their pipes — the dead man walking isn’t some abstract or far-removed principle just for wonks: It affects the internet as we all know it.

It might be easier to understand the concept through an ice cream shop metaphor. Most shops price their wares based on size instead of flavor — a large costs more than a small, but vanilla doesn’t cost more than chocolate. That’s the way most Internet service providers charge their customers, except they’re worried about connection speeds and websites instead of cones and ice cream flavors.

Now imagine that your favorite frozen dessert vendor charged different prices for every flavor of ice cream in his shop. A chocolate cone might cost more than a vanilla one, and Rocky Road could become prohibitively expensive. That’s what might happen if these Internet service providers start charging based on the websites their customers access instead of the speed with which they access them.

Allowing free access to Facebook and its messaging service on a small prepaid network isn’t as large a threat to net neutrality as some of the things large Internet service providers might do. But this doesn’t mean that giving Facebook preferential treatment shouldn’t be frowned upon.

What is the difference between charging consumers extra to access one website and allowing them to access a specific service at no cost? Someone is giving consumers a reason to access one website instead of another either way. Both approaches give preferential treatment to one service over the competition. The underlying principle — that a byte from one website should cost more or less than a byte from another website — is the same.

It would suck if your local ice cream seller started charging more for your favorite flavor. Allowing others to eat a different flavor for free in an effort to get more people into his shop would be just as sleazy, even if it doesn’t seem like it at first. Ice cream is ice cream, the Internet is the Internet, and both should cost the same no matter what flavor you want.

Booker, which helps service businesses better engage with customers online, has raised $35 million in a Series C round led by Medina Capital, with participation from strategic investor First Data, Jump Capital, and Signal Peak Ventures, as well as existing investors. The New York City company now sees 3 million appointments booked monthly across 73 countries in 11 languages on its platform. [via Booker]

PCH, a company which “helps entrepreneurs turn ideas into brands and makes a variety of consumer tech products for major companies such as Apple,” has acquired Fab for a reported $15 million in cash and stock. Fab previously had a $1 billion valuation and raised $325 million. It will “continue to focus on design” at PCH. [Source: Bloomberg]

BlackBerry has unveiled several new smartphones at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, including the touchscreen-focused BlackBerry Leap and a device with a “dual curve slider,” in addition to its keyboard-equipped products. [Source: New York Times]

March 3, 2015

“I hope to have a bigger presence in the tech world. I love coming up with different app ideas, and I have a few more that are coming out. Once you get started and you have this creative bug of ideas that you want to get out, I feel like I’ve partnered with the right team, and now I have the creative outlet to make that happen. I’m happy that people are into it and perceiving it well. I just want to create more apps.”

PayPal is planning to acquire Paydiant, the company behind CurrentC — retailers’ answer to Apple Pay — for a reported $280 million. No word yet on how the companies will mix, nor if Paydiant’s relationship with the industry group behind CurrentC will remain intact. [Source: Re/code]

Microsoft is in talks to acquire Prismatic, a news aggregation service that uses natural language processing to recommend content in which its users might be interested, according to a report from TechCrunch. Apple, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook are all said to have expressed similar interest in the company. (Which is surely a sign of actual interest and not at all an attempt by someone at the company to make it seem like a hot commodity — right?) [Source: TechCrunch]

March 2, 2015

“Just wanted to confirm that the rumors are true — I’m excited to be running Google’s Photos and Streams products! It’s important to me that these changes are properly understood to be positive improvements to both our products and how they reach users.”

Samsung has announced Samsung Pay, a competitor to the Apple Pay product included in Apple’s latest iPhones, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The feature will allow new Samsung Galaxy S6 owners who use MasterCard to pay for goods with their phones. It’s not clear when other credit card companies will be supported. [Source: The Guardian]